


Chicken Soup for the Con Artist's Soul

by speccygeekgrrl



Category: White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Caretaking, Chicken Soup, Friendship, Gen, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27609923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: When Mozzie comes down with an illness that leaves him bedridden in Neal's bed, the Burkes drop by with El's magic soup and Peter's vitamin C overdose to keep Neal from catching it too.
Relationships: Elizabeth Burke & Mozzie (White Collar), Elizabeth Burke & Neal Caffrey, Elizabeth Burke/Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey & Mozzie, Peter Burke & Mozzie, Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35





	Chicken Soup for the Con Artist's Soul

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: White Collar, taste, caretaking, perfection.
> 
> If you'd like to prompt me to write more White Collar fic, I make prompt posts all the time over on [my Pillowfort](http://pillowfort.social/speccygeekgrrl).

As soon as he got home, Neal put his hand against Mozzie's forehead again, less to gauge his temperature since the flush of his face indicated the fever was still in full effect, and more to offer a little relief with a caring touch that was cool from the late fall weather he'd just come in from. "How ya feeling, buddy?" he asked quietly.

"Ungh," Mozzie replied succinctly. 

"Yeah, that's about how you look," Neal said. Mozzie cracked his eyes open enough to aim a pathetic, sulky look at Neal, who pressed the backs of his fingers to Mozzie's right cheek, trading his chill for Mozzie's excessive heat. "Did you take any more tylenol after I left?"

"Haven't woken up since you left this morning," Mozzie admitted, voice a rasp. 

Neal clicked his tongue and went to grab a couple of tablets and a glass of water that he stood and watched until Mozzie finished drinking. "Are you really going to make me do _all_ the work taking care of you?" he asked.

"Sorry," Mozzie mumbled, and let his head fall back on the sweat-stained pillow. "Usually not so... needy as this."

"It's all right, Moz," Neal said softly. "Remember San Francisco? I owe you."

"Oh, god," Mozzie said. "I try _not_ to remember San Francisco."

"You're a better patient than I've ever been," Neal said dryly. 

A knock on the door startled them both, but Neal smiled as soon as he swung it open, surprised and pleased by their visitor. "Hello, El."

"Where is he?" Elizabeth said, holding a crockpot to her chest with both arms. "Tell me you're not making him sleep on the couch."

"I'm _wounded_ you would make such an accusation," Neal said, waving her in. 

As soon as she put the crockpot on the table she flitted over to the bed to put her hand to Mozzie's forehead and smile down at him. "Hey, Moz. I brought you some chicken soup." 

"Angel of mercy," Mozzie breathed, and turned into her touch. "You didn't have to..."

"Shhh," El said. "Peter says this recipe has magical healing powers. And you've pulled magic tricks to help us before. It's the least I can do." She fussed over him, and Mozzie let her do it, too weak to protest, too fond of her to protest her specifically.

Peter followed her up a couple minutes later, a drugstore bag in one hand and a grocery bag in the other. "It's like the two of you don't trust me as a nurse," Neal said, mocking offense with his face but with laughter in his voice. 

"Blame it on El," Peter said. "I'd be just as happy on the couch with Satchmo keeping my feet warm, but she wanted a pack mule." He went to unpack the groceries into Neal's fridge, orange juice and premade salads and cut fruit stacked neatly on the shelf. 

"I don't need your sympathy, Suit," Mozzie said, not sounding like his heart was in it. 

Peter shrugged, snagged one of the beers left over from the last time he'd put something in Neal's fridge, and sat down at the table. "Then don't let me trouble you with it," he said placidly, and started pawing through the papers on the table.

Neal neatly collected the papers before Peter could see more than one of them and put them underneath the fruit bowl with a shake of his head. "Ready for that soup, Moz?"

"I could eat," Mozzie said. 

"Am I allowed to have some too?" Neal asked when he took the lid off the crockpot. "This smells divine."

"There's eight servings in that crock," El said. 

"Then we should all have some," Mozzie said. "There'll be plenty left for me to recover on." El put a hand on his arm to help him over to the table, a touch he would have brushed off had she been anyone else, and he sniffled through a stuffed nose when Neal set a bowl in front of him. "I regret that my sense of taste has abandoned me for now."

"Did you ever really have a sense of taste?" Peter asked. Neal turned his head so Mozzie wouldn't see the laughter in his eyes, which meant that Peter saw it full force, and the corner of his lips lifted in return.

"Honey, be nice," El said, pursing her lips at her husband.

"Don't worry," Mozzie said. "I can't be offended in such a manner by a man who dresses the way he does." 

"You're one to talk about fashion," Peter said.

"Eat your soup," El said sternly. "Both of you. All of you. Everyone." 

Neal took a seat once he'd served everyone else, and he breathed in over his bowl, letting it out on a happy sigh before he even put the spoon in his mouth. "Oh, El, this is _perfection_ ," he said. "I hope you'll think of me this fondly when I come down with it after taking care of him."

"As if we'd let you go uncared-for," Peter said. Neal shot a wide-eyed look at him to find that Peter was studiously not looking at him, but the tenderness in his voice had been unmistakable. 

"Don't worry, Neal," El said, and she didn't try to hide her fondness from him. "You've performed miracles for us too. The magic soup will be yours... but hopefully you won't catch it." 

"Oh, yeah," Peter said, and went into the pharmacy bag to pull out a box of Emergen-C and toss it at Neal. "You better not get sick, we have too much to do this week, and we can't have you breaking into a coughing fit mid-break-in."

"Ooh, a break-in," Mozzie said, perking up as much from the thought of a heist as from the excellent soup. "Do tell."

By the time they'd all reached the bottom of their bowls, Mozzie and Elizabeth had both weighed in on the plan Peter and Neal had come up with to liberate a flash drive from a safe in a locked room on a secure floor ten stories below a skyscraper, pointing out one very large flaw in the plan that happened to be patched perfectly by a skill Mozzie could use even from his sickbed. Mozzie looked significantly livelier already; not much less feverish, but certainly much better cared for, by a group of people he'd already trusted with his life.


End file.
